French Nuclear Strategy

Nietzsche

Banned
Would French nuclear strategy have worked during the Armageddon known as 'Cold war goes Hot'? For those unaware, check wiki. But the best way to describe it is a literal Fire Wall. That is, a strip of land too radioactive and such for enemy troops to risk going through.
 
Would French nuclear strategy have worked during the Armageddon known as 'Cold war goes Hot'? For those unaware, check wiki. But the best way to describe it is a literal Fire Wall. That is, a strip of land too radioactive and such for enemy troops to risk going through.

The French nuclear doctrine was based on the assumption, that a nuclear war would only go nuclear on the tactical level. That's why they decided to build all those short range missiles, destined to fire over the Rhine and nuke Soviet formations in W. Germany.

We now know however, that if tactical nuclear warfare was to reach these kind of levels (NATO nuking Soviet formations in W. Germany after a Soviet breakthrough), it was only a short walk to total nuclear warfare, including strategic weapons. The Soviets had A LOT of medium and short range ballistic missiles, which they could use to target France. Basically all of Western Europe would turn into a super-wasteland in the event of nuclear warfare. The Soviets simply had too many short and medium range ballistic missiles and tons of bombers to use.
 
"Dans dix ans, nous aurons de quoi tuer 80 millions de Russes. Eh bien je crois qu'on n'attaque pas volontiers des gens qui ont de quoi tuer 80 millions de Russes, même si on a soi-même de quoi tuer 800 millions de Français, à supposer qu'il y eût 800 millions de Français."

And lo and behold, de Gaulle was right on this assumption: the recovered WP offensive plans tented to stop to the French border after 1970s.
 
I don't really understand this.

So far as I can see the French war-fighting strategy was to hit deep strategic targets in the USSR, not a "nuclear firewall" on the border.

They meant to punish the Soviets way out-of-proportion to the damage suffered by metropolitan France.
 
No, they recognised France could be destroyed by the Soviets ten times over, (when once is enough, the extra is pointless) but intended to make any such attack so costly for the Soviets that they wouldn't bother: why invade France, or turn it into a smouldering ruin, if it'd cost you 80 million dead and lose a couple of divisions and cities in the process?

Sweden had a similar non-nuclear defensive doctrine: make it simply not worth the effort of an attacker to attack for the gains they'd achieve from it.

The animal kingdom does it all the time - pick on the weakest prey, rather than risk needless injury from stronger prey.
 

Hkelukka

Banned
Warsaw pact would most likely not use nuclear weapons against the mainland targets of any nuclear armed nations. No matter what the drills say and predict they would do, they arent idiots.

So, the nuclear exchange would be limited to destroying C and E europe, both of which serves the interestes of W europe and Russia. So. From the French PoV it would work, Warsaw pact gathers enough supplies near units and doesnt bother about long supply lines that can be cut, hits with a surprise attack and advances along the cover of low yield theather weapons at all NATO supply and troop targets in non-nuclear armed nations, making absolutely sure they are low yield so that they just mess with the nato ability to respond and not entirely eliminate it. Force nato to keep the response low yield and over the theather by not striking any French or UK land installations and not crossing UK or French airspace.

Stop at the French border and at the Italian Borders, Dont invade Swiss and thats about as far as the USSR can go. Mainland France is immediate nuclear exchange and Mainland Italy too most likely.

So, it works. Kept the Cold War from going hot since all USSR military predictions would end in nuclear holocaust if military solution is sought. Its only pure luck that this understanding didnt translate into a massive USSR military reduction in the 70's and 80's and a focus on ideological brainwashing of the population. Had that happened we would all speak russian.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
No, they recognised France could be destroyed by the Soviets ten times over, (when once is enough, the extra is pointless) but intended to make any such attack so costly for the Soviets that they wouldn't bother: why invade France, or turn it into a smouldering ruin, if it'd cost you 80 million dead and lose a couple of divisions and cities in the process?

Sweden had a similar non-nuclear defensive doctrine: make it simply not worth the effort of an attacker to attack for the gains they'd achieve from it.

The animal kingdom does it all the time - pick on the weakest prey, rather than risk needless injury from stronger prey.

Sweden's modern-day assault gun. Interesting beastie, looks like something the Germans would've put out if they weren't so completely annihilated.

No idea why they decided to call it a tank, but it served as a good enough deterrent, as from what I understand of Soviet intell reports they would be nigh-willing to drop Finland back into Swedish care. Not annexed, just "fine, we'll leave it alone, because fuck invading Sweden".
 
I was thinking more the Swedish concentration on mass mobilisation, a relatively large, modern and well-coordinated air force, able to disperse and use roads instead of airstrips, warship berths built into rock faces, and a significant number of coastal submarines and fast attack craft able to stymie amphibious activity in the Baltic. But they also had an interesting tank design, too. ;)
 

Nietzsche

Banned
I was thinking more the Swedish concentration on mass mobilisation, a relatively large, modern and well-coordinated air force, able to disperse and use roads instead of airstrips, warship berths built into rock faces, and a significant number of coastal submarines and fast attack craft able to stymie amphibious activity in the Baltic. But they also had an interesting tank design, too. ;)

Speaking of a Soviet invasion of Scandinavia, did Norway have any of those super-uboat bunkers that Hitler had built around the rest of fortress Europe? Wonder how that would've fared against a red army.

And yes, all the other stuff probably helps. But as we all know, the side with the coolest looking tank...

Wait. They tend to lose, don't they? As far as I can tell the only exception to the rule is South Africa..
 

Hkelukka

Banned
Assuming that Finland follows its cold war path and allies with the soviet or at least allows warsaw pact units to pass through the north of Finland.

Sweden will probably fall incredibly fast, along the lines of denmark in WW2. Assuming a quick escalation in the 70's or 80's that is along the lines of "not global thermonuclear, small and theather related" where the french nuclear strategy might be relevant.

One of the most important targets would be Scandinavia, because the Red Army would ofcourse not be able to cross into france. It is likely that a lightningstrike along the baltic sea towards Sweden would be undertaken at the same time as a general offensive in Germany.

But all in all. Assuming conventional ground war where the USSR is even marginally interested in actually occupying sweden as a part of the starting strategy and not as a mission bloat will result in sweden falling quicker than 1 week for the most part and 2-3 weeks completely save for the possible lone garrison somewhere.

In a conventional non-nuclear conflict in the 70's or a nuclear conflict that is strictly theather weapons and low use of those would result in a USSR land victory within 2-3 months i feel.
 
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